THE STORY
"No matter where you go, everyone's connected."
Serial Experiments Lain is an anime created in 1998 that touches on topics of identity and technology. It calls into question what it means to have human relationships and how we connect to one another both in person and in an online environment.
We are first introduced to Lain Iwakura who is a shy, awkward and withdrawn girl with seemingly little knowledge of how to interact with others. She seems a little out of touch with her friends and technology but soon dives in to the online world when classmates begin receiving e-mails from a girl who has just commit suicide. Things, however, are not as it seems. As the thirteen episodes unfold, we find out that Lain may not be who we see in the beginning.
Throughout the series we uncover information about a man named Masami Eiri who works for Tachibana General Laboratories as a chief engineer. He is working on Protocol 7, the next generation of the Wired (the series’ version of the Internet). His intentions are not exactly pure as he inserts into the code some of his own to try and break down the barrier of the real world and the Wired. In addition to his work on Protocol 7, he also works on a program that acts as a root user of the Wired who can fix issues; this program is Lain. Eiri's misdoings are eventually found out and he commits suicide but not before uploading his consciousness into the Wired where he can live without a physical form.
"What isn't remembered never happened."
In addition to the research by Masami Eiri, there was an experiment called KIDS being run by a Professor Hodgeson. His theory was that children all possess psi, a certain low-level parapsychological ability. He joins children into an array trying to harness the psi and convert it to energy, however, the experiment goes horribly awry and the experiment is scrapped.
Years later, a group of hackers called The Knights of the Eastern Calculus, who follow Masami Eiri, find the schematics and use it at Eiri’s bidding to further the breakdown of the barrier between the real world and Wired using a theory based on the Schumann Resonances. The thought was that these frequencies could be encoded and used as a global neural network to connect humanity at an unconscious level without any use of a physical device. The system was installed at a club where kids hang out as a test. There the children’s energy was unknowingly being used and as a result were getting more connected to the Wired. This causes problems though as the children begin to lose control of what is reality.
Tachibana General Laboratories realizes that there are problems with Protocol 7 due to Eiri’s interfering and create a physical version of the Lain program to understand what it is to be human and to use this experience to fix the issues with Protocol 7. The physical program in the form of a girl was given to an employee who takes her home and acts as her father. It is here that the story unfolds as Lain begins to question who she is, where she came from and what her purpose is. Eventually she comes to the full realization of her ability and that she can right wrongs by deleting herself from the memory of others.
